“I 'd just say,4 Look here, young gent, is this balderdash here your hand? Well, now, eat your words. Yes, eat them. I mean what I say. Eat up that letter, seal and all, or, by my oath, I 'll break every bone in your skin!'” “It is exactly what I intend,” cried a voice, hoarse with passion; and Jopplyn himself sprang into the room, and dashed at me. The skipper was a most powerful man, but it required all his strength, and not very gingerly exercised either, to hold off my enraged adversary. “Will you be quiet, Christy?” cried he, holding him by the throat “Will you just be quiet for one instant, or must I knock you down?” “Do! do! by all means,” muttered I; for I thought if he were once on the ground, I could finish him off with a large pewter measure that stood on the table. With a rough shake the skipper had at last convinced the other that resistance was useless, and induced him to consent to a parley. “Let him only tell you” said he, “what he has told me, Christy.” “Don't strike, but hear me,” cried I; and safe in my stockade behind the skipper, I recounted my mistake. “And _you_ believe all this?” asked Jopplyn of the skipper, when I had finished. “Believe it,--I should think I do! I have known him since he was a child that high, and I 'll answer for his good conduct and behavior.” Heaven bless you for that bail bond, though endorsed in a lie, honest ship-captain! and I only hope I may live to requite you for it. Jopplyn was appeased; but it was the suppressed wrath of a brown bear rather than the vanquished anger of a man. He had booked himself for something cruel, and he was miserable to be balked. Nor was I myself--I shame to own it--an emblem of perfect forgiveness. I know nothing harder than for a constitutionally timid man of weak proportions to forgive the bullying superiority of brute force. It is about the greatest trial human forgiveness can be subjected to; so that when Jopplyn, in a vulgar spirit of reconciliation, proposed that we should go and dine with him that day, I declined the invitation with a frigid politeness. “I wish I could persuade you to change your plans,” said he, “and let Mrs. J. and myself see you at six.” “I believe I can answer for him that it is impossible,” broke in the skipper; while he added in a whisper, “They never _can_ afford any delay; they have to put on the steam at high pressure from one end of Europe to t' other.” What could he possibly mean by imputing such haste to my movements, and who were “they” with whom he thus associated me? I would have given worlds to ask, but the presence of Jopplyn prevented me, and so I could simply assent with a sort of foolish laugh, and a muttered “Very true,--quite correct.” “Indeed, how you manage to be here now, I can scarcely imagine,” continued the skipper. “The last of yours that went through this took a roll of bread and a cold chicken with him into the train, rather than halt to eat his supper,--but I conclude _you_ know best.”